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Wanted: An International Rule of Law for Cloud Data

Without an agreement, one country might prohibit the disclosure of information another country requires.

By

Michael Chertoff

Dec. 18, 2014 6:45 p.m. ET

Imagine a world in which European regulators can order Google to delete information from its servers—information that, in America, would be protected by the First Amendment. Or a world in which Apple can be ordered by the Chinese government to keep all iCloud data created in China (even by Americans) on China-based servers so that the government could have ready access to it.

Both of those real examples recently made headlines. But they exist in a world of conflict over whose national laws govern data held in cyberspace. And...